But much had to happen first. The hero was
big _Billy Roberts_, a teamster with the heart of a child and the
strength of a prize-fighter--which was in fact his alternative
profession. He married _Saxon Brown_ ("a scream of a name" her friend
called it when introducing them to each other), and for a time their
life together was as nearly idyllic as newly-wedded housekeeping in a
mean street could permit it to be. Then came the lean years: strikes
and strike-breaking, sabotage and rioting, prison for _Billy_, and
all but starvation for _Saxon_. Perhaps you know already that peculiar
gift of Mr. JACK LONDON'S that makes you not only see physical
hardship but suffer it? I believe that after these chapters the reader
of them will never again be able to regard a newspaper report of
street-fighting with the same detachment as before, so vivid are
they, so haunting. In the end, however, as I say, we find a happier
atmosphere. The adventures of _Billy_ and _Saxon_, tramping it in
search of a home, soon make their urban terrors seem to them and the
reader a kind of nightmare. Here Mr. LONDON is at his delightful
best, and his word-pictures of country scenes are as fresh and fine
as anything he has yet done. _The Valley of the Moon_, in short,
is really two stories--one grim, one pleasant, and both brilliantly
successful.
* * * * *
It is perhaps a mistake to read a novel at a sitting, since the
reaction is too sudden and the reader is apt to find the real life and
the real people surrounding him highly unsatisfactory by contrast.
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